


The Surprising Necessity of Ornithology

by clefairytea



Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Gen, Morosexual Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 12:30:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20582549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clefairytea/pseuds/clefairytea
Summary: “Well, well. Let me see, children,” the Mymble said, gaily pushing past them. The man in question was rather dark and fuzzy, curled up in a little ball on top of a wooden board. The Mymble recognised that hat and raggedy tail and funny smell immediately.“Joxter!” she cried. The Joxter bolted upright. knocking away a few children that had sat on top of him. Delighted, the Mymble picked him up by his armpits. He blinked, always a little confused when he first woke up, but then grinned at her.“Mymble!” he said, tail flicking upwards with excitement.--The Joxter and the Mymble cross paths again in Moominvalley.





	The Surprising Necessity of Ornithology

**Author's Note:**

> I just love writing the Mymble she's so funny. Take this little thing.

It had been a little while since the Mymble had been in Moominvalley.

It wasn’t as though she _intentionally_ wandered about. It was just, with over 30 – well, at this point, over 40 – children to care for, it was difficult to stay in place. One little dear would wander off and one would follow it for a little. And then one ended up in a new place and would meet a nice gentleman. And then, before one knew it, there was a new child in the family, more interesting places to explore, and another nice gentleman (or perhaps a charming lady) on the horizon.

It was exhausting to be such a busy woman. She could barely keep track of what day of the week it was, with so many children to care for and so many _interesting_ people to meet and endless fantastic things to do and see!

Yet, it would be nice to see her dear Moominmamma. The Moomins were always so hospitable, too. And her children loved to visit! They’d taken a real shine to the youngest moomin last time. She was sure the moomin family would only be too delighted to see them.

Thus, the Mymble ambled easily towards Moominhouse at half-past-spring, all her little children running behind her, ahead of her, around her, or clinging to her coat. It was a jolly nice day to be out with them.

“Mother!” shouted one of her little sons ahead. They were all crowded around something. “We found something!”

“Did you now?” the Mymble replied cheerfully. “Something exciting?”

“It’s a man!” one of her daughters called.

“Oh my,” the Mymble said. “A dead one? Or living?”

Both would be rather interesting, after all. The Mymble loved a good murder mystery.

The children consulted each other for a second, and one grabbed a stick and gave the object they were gathered around a good prod. They stood around it for a while, faces scrunched up with concentration. Eventually, the man must have reacted, because they all jumped and began squealing.

“He’s alive!”

Oh well. That was still fun. It had been a few days, after all.

“Well, well. Let me see, children,” the Mymble said, gaily pushing past them. The man in question was rather dark and fuzzy, curled up in a little ball on top of a wooden board. The Mymble recognised that hat and raggedy tail and funny smell immediately.

“Joxter!” she cried. The Joxter bolted upright. knocking away a few children that had sat on top of him. Delighted, the Mymble picked him up by his armpits. He blinked, always a little confused when he first woke up, but then grinned at her.

“Mymble!” he said, tail flick upwards with excitement. Below her, the children swarmed around the _Keep Off the Grass _sign he’d been napping on, and excitably began to shred it to pieces.

The Mymble gave him a quick kiss and set him on his feet. Oh yes, she had a lot of suitors – what woman didn’t – but the Joxter had always been one of her favourites. It was hard not to have a soft spot for a fellow free spirit.

“It’s lovely to see you again, my dear,” the Joxter said, eyes growing much blacker as he stared at her.

“And you too. How long has it been?” she wondered. “Why, we haven’t seen each other since – hm, it was Daddy Jones' 101st birthday, wasn’t it?”

The children began joyously jumping around in a large pile of freshly-made woodchips.

“Oh, yes! Must have been,” the Joxter said, scratching his nose idly. “How long ago was that?”

“Oh, hm, a few seasons, I think, perhaps?” the Mymble said absently, resting her hand on her cheek. “Oh, I’m no good with time.”

“Nor am I. What does time matter to us, anyway? You have far too much fun for that.”

“And you live much too carefree for it to matter,” the Mymble agreed.

He smiled up at her.

“I’m sure it hasn’t been too long,” he said, looking a little sheepish, “but I’ve missed you anyway.”

“Of course you have!” she said, scratching behind his ear. He purred, leaning against her. “Now, what brings you to Moominvalley, you ball of rags?”

“Ah, thought it would be nice to pop in and see Moomintroll,” he said, showing his sharp teeth in a grin. “I heard he built a house. I’d rather like to see if I could break in.”

“He’s Moomin_pappa_ now,” she told him.

“Is he really?” the Joxter said, blinking slowly. “I shall see if I can kidnap the child as well, then.”

The Mymble laughed.

“Of course, you’ll give it back, won’t you?”

“Naturally!” the Joxter said. “But it will be fun to give old Moomin a fright.”

“You are as delightful as you’ve ever been,” she said. He blushed, looking much pleased with that, and took her arm. They began to walk, letting the children follow at whatever pace they pleased. It was a little awkward, with the Mymble being so tall and the Joxter being so short, but it was pleasant enough. They chatted as though they’d never spent any time apart at all, as the children pelted pieces of wood at unfortunate Moominvalley residents.

However, the Joxter never liked to walk for too long. Eventually the Mymble took off her scarf and scooped up the Joxter to put on her shoulders instead.

“I think one of my children lives here now,” the Mymble said. “Do you remember Little My?”

“Of course! Very spirited child, one of my favourites,” he said, flicking his tail for one of the children to chase after. He hummed thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, was she mine?”

“Perhaps. I was never quite sure, dearest.”

“Of course not,” the Joxter said, pleased to finally be in the company with someone as sensible as the Mymble once more. “How boring it would be if you were.”

She scratched under his chin.

“Quite,” she said. “So how _is_ our child?”

The Joxter twisted on her shoulder, giving her a puzzled look.

“What child?”

“Why, the child I sent you, of course.”

“Dearest Mymble, you must be mistaken. You didn’t send me a child,” he said.

“I’m quite sure I did!” she replied. “You asked me to, after all. Remember that? It was after we tried that interesting thing with the snail shells. We were taking a little rest and you said, that if anything we did resulted in a child, to send the little dear onto you if they were more joxter than mymble.”

“Of course, I remember saying that!” he said and then folded his arms under him, looking rather forlorn for a second. “I was rather disappointed nothing came of it. I always thought it might be nice to have a little joxling to care for.”

“But something _did_ come of it! I had an adorable little child that had your paws and tail and your lovely big nose,” she said. The Joxter’s eyes went very wide, and his tail flicked back and forth, one child still hanging onto the end of it.

“You did?”

“I did. And I said, ‘Well, you need to go straight to your Pappa, who can raise to be both delightfully troublesome and wonderfully lazy’. So I scooped him up into a basket and gave him to a nice stork for delivery,” she said.

She stopped in her tracks, trying to think back to that day. She did not have the best memory, but now she was thinking about it, had that been a stork? The creature had been extremely reticent to accept the delivery, after all. She was no ornithologist, either, and many birds looked so very similar.

“It may have been a pelican, actually,” she said quietly. “Or a heron…”

The Joxter slipped off her neck, landing with a thump in the grass behind her.

“A pelican? A heron?” he repeated, fur standing on end. Oh dear, he was distressed now. He was quite sensitive, in his own little way. “Why, they don’t know how to deliver babies at all! My dearest, you –“

“Now, now, dear,” the Mymble said, stooping down to scoop him back up, but he darted out of her arms and dashed between her legs. He paced the grass on all fours, tail held up high.

“How long ago was this, my Mymble?” he asked. One of the children climbed onto his back and started pulling on his ears, but he didn’t seem to notice. The Mymble tried to think – she really did – but she didn’t keep a calendar or a watch. She simply had far too much fun to keep track of boring things like that.

“Oh, I don’t know, dearest. Perhaps a year?” she said desperately. The Joxter slunk back and forth, tail puffed up bigger than she’d ever seen it, and the Mymble felt sad watching him. It was horrible to see him dealing with his forebodings, as he called them.

“Now you come here,” she said, scooping him back up into her comfortable arms and giving him a very tight squeeze. “We will put our heads together and we will find this missing child. Mymble and joxter children are both very resilient. The little dear will be completely fine.”

The Joxter breathed out, relaxing into her hands.

“You are completely right, of course. We will come up with something,” he said, rubbing his face against her upper arm. “Do set me down though. I think I want to be upright for a while.”

She nodded and set him back down. They walked and tried to think and come up with clever ideas with where the bird may have taken the child. Unfortunately, neither of them bothered with being clever often, so they were rather out of practice with it. Moreover, the Joxter was much better at stealing owned things than finding his own, and the Mymble was much better at making new children than keeping up with old ones.

They were both close to despair when a snufkin fishing by the river came over to them. He was wearing a large green coat, so the Mymble couldn’t tell if he had a tail or not. He looked young – perhaps fifteen or so, at a guess. The fur on his face hadn’t even quite grown in yet.

“Hullo,” the boy said. “Are you two alright?”

He looked extraordinarily familiar. It took Mymble a little while to figure it out, but then it occurred to her.

“Oh!” the Mymble said. “You’re one of Little My’s friends, aren’t you?”

“That I am,” he said. “Now I’m not one to be nosy, but you both seem upset. And neither of you look the type to do so easily. Whatever is the matter?”

“Oh, it’s sweet of you to ask, but rather terrible, actually,” the Mymble said. “You see, we’ve lost our child.”

The snufkin glanced around at all the children running and screaming.

“I suppose that would be easy to do.”

“Oh, it’s worse than losing any of these,” the Joxter said. “Ours is only a year old.”

“Oh, that _is_ terrible,” the snufkin said, eyes widening.

“Yes! I put him in a basket for delivery, but it seems it’s been lost!” the Mymble said, for once wishing she were a little less scatter-brained. “The little creature was probably just dumped somewhere.”

The snufkin looked rather solemn at that.

“I was left in a basket myself, you know.”

“Oh, you poor thing!”

“Yes, so like most snufkins, I raised myself,” he said, and then added in a modest tone, as though admitting to a mildly embarrassing mistake: “It was occasionally difficult.”

“How horrid,” the Joxter said, biting down on his pipe. The Mymble nodded, quite cross that anything so nasty could happen. The snufkin seemed like a nice boy too. She couldn’t imagine what sort of parents would desert such a sweet child!

“Well, I have no other plans,” the snufkin said. “If you’d like, I can help you look for your missing child.”

“That would be splendid. We’ve been thinking for almost an hour and are quite at our wits end!” the Mymble said. The Joxter nodded, eager to have another person on the case. Besides, the little snufkin boy seemed bright enough. In the Joxter’s opinion it was always best to just find a clever person and let them do the clever things for you, rather than trouble yourself with them.

“Now, who did you give the delivery to?” the snufkin asked.

“Hm. It was either a stork, or a pelican, or a heron…” the Mymble said, shaking her head. “Or…well, it could have been an egret. I’m not good with birds.”

“And I only eat the little ones, so I don’t know either,” the Joxter supplied unhelpfully. The snufkin thought for a second and then nodded, coming up with a plan.

“Well, I’m something of an amateur ornithologist. How about you describe then creature to me and I’ll try to figure it out,” he said. “If we know what type of bird it is, we’ll know where it lives and how it migrates. From that we can perhaps come up with some ideas of where the child may have been left.”

“What a clever plan!” the Mymble said, greatly impressed. Trying to remember as well as she could, she began describing the bird to the snufkin. The Joxter climbed onto her shoulders, relaxed enough to be a scarf again.

They were very lucky, the Mymble thought, to have stumbled across such a resourceful and helpful child.

****

Little My _had_ tried to tell her mother that it was a crane, not a stork, and clearly had no idea what to do with a baby in a basket.

She had tried, but when mother had her mind set, she would rarely be dissuaded. In fact, she would not even really listen to anyone – not her, not her older sister, and certainly not the poor unfortunate crane begging for this not to be his problem. That was just the kind of person she was.

Chomping down another handful of blackberries, Little My watched Snufkin explain to his parents how they were going to find the so-called missing baby. Stood between them, his resemblance to them both couldn’t be more obvious.

She could climb down from this tree and settle the whole issue, of course, but where was the fun in that?

“My? My, what are you up to up there?”

Little My looked down to see Snorkmaiden staring up at her from the base of the tree. With a grin, she shuffled along the branch, patting the space next to her.

“Do you want to watch something really funny?” she asked. Snorkmaiden made a face.

“You’re not up to something nasty again, are you?” she asked. Little My grinned, blackberry juice all over her teeth.

“Of course not. I’m just watching some family gossip unfold,” she said. “Surely you can’t resist that?”

Snorkmaiden began climbing the tree.

“Oh, you know I can’t,” she said, sitting next to her. Little My put the sack of blackberries between them and made herself comfortable. Below them, Snufkin had started drawing a map and the Joxter, unable to resist, had immediately climbed on top of it.

“So,” Snorkmaiden asked, “who is that Snufkin’s with?”

Little My chuckled. Below, the Mymble shoved the Joxter in her handbag to get him out of the way, and Snufkin shook the fur out of his map. Snorkmaiden frowned.

“Let’s see if you figure it out before he does,” Little My said.

It would be a very entertaining afternoon.

**Author's Note:**

> The Mymble and the Joxter have one brain cell between them and his name is Snufkin and they lost him. Morosexual rights.
> 
> It takes them all day until Snufkin realises the route they're plotting sure sounds a lot like where he was found and sure is close to the orphanage he spent a couple of years in. Little My doesn't help in the least.


End file.
